From Black Holes to Anti-Superstition – Interview with Dr Atish Dabholkar (Tamil version of this interview is published in April 2019 issue of Puthagam Pesudhu) Interview By : Subashree Desikan Transcribed by : Ma Sivakumar First, I would like to know about your personal life. Narendra Dabholkar is very famous. We know so much about him. In a sad way his life ended. Can you talk about your relationship with him? Did you imbibe his rationalism as a youngster? Did you interact a lot with him? Dabholkar : We are a quite close family. He was a very dear uncle, he was a very nice uncle. Take us to movies and things like that. Both my parents are also rationalists. My mother is an atheist without any compromise. My rationalist approach started there. I was particularly interested in Narendra Dabholkar as I became a scientist. I came to appreciate what he has been doing. I argued with him and talked with him quite extensively over the years. I did take part in some of his campaigns. Later, after his death I got more seriously involved in a signature campaign. We had a website to collect signatures of some 3,000 scientists and 100,000 citizens. We succeeded in getting the support. Of course, this movement was going on for many years and people have been working on it. My colleagues worked a lot on this, they drove this and deserve the credit. But, this campaign played a role in getting the law passed. Especially, in making this issue known to the scientific community. I would not say that I necessarily learnt my rationalism from him. But something I felt intellectually close with. He was a close uncle. Did you do any activities with him as a child or as a youth? Dabholkar : I went for a couple of programs and they used to have camps for various things. But not very significant way, only marginally. But I did read and discussed with him a lot. My own interest was not in the direction of social, I was certainly interested in making a commitment. The focus of my work was mostly in science which is more academic. As a citizen, I am certainly interested in these issues. These are very important s. Somebody at home was making a very big contribution. I was certainly involved in that. Was he celebrated in your family? Dabholkar : Not particularly. Everybody in my family is kind of unique, I would say. My father got the Bajaj award. He was a mathematics graduate, a professor in college. But he was interested in people science, farmers. My various other uncles also have their own peculiarities. About your education. You passed Masters in Physics from IIT Kanpur in 1985. Then you went to the Princeton University to do PhD. Was it at that time, RR and HS Mani were professors there. It was considered to be the best Physics department in the country. Dabholkar : That was one of the reasons I went all the way to Kanpur. My parents were worried. They wanted me to go just to Bombay. In those days to make a phone call, you have to book a trunk call. Sending letters use to take several days. They never pushed us, they gave complete freedom to pursue what we wanted to do. Many parents were against going into pure sciences when you have an IIT admission. I was quite sure I wanted to do physics. They completely supported me. If you think Kanpur is the best place, you think, you go. Whatever happens to your it is your decision. I think that was the right decision. It was quite an inspiring place in those days, because of very good professors. When you prepared for IIT itself you prepared with a view to go into Physics? Dabholkar : 1/6 Yes, I was quite sure that I want to do Physics. I did not prefer IIT. I sort of took it on the side. I did okay, not particularly brilliantly. Both my parents were not particularly oriented in one direction. They were not pushing to go to IIT. I was thinking of this curious co-incidence. Rajesh Gopakumar also went to IIT Kanpur. He also topped in IIT JEE and went there. He took up string theory later on. Is there something about IIT Kanpur which makes you go towards String theory. Dabholkar : Particle physics and string theory were exciting that time. Things have changed now, people prefer different fields now what become fashionable. I think some of the professors were more oriented towards theoretical particle physics. Later there are very good professors who do theoretical condensed matter. More students went into condensed matter physics in the 1990s. Rajesh was 6 years junior to me, I think. He sort of followed me. When I finished in Princeton, he joined a year later. Who was you thesis advisor in Princeton? Dabholkar : Jeffrey Harvey. He was one of the Princeton String Quartet. The famous paper on Heterotic String theory. Who are the four? Dabholkar : David Gross, he was the Nobel laurate, Emil Martinec and Ryan Rohm. How was Princeton after the IIT-K experience. Did it adequately prepare you for it? Dabholkar : Yes, I was adequately prepared. There are a lot of cultural issues. In those days they were more severe than they are now. Even things like washing machine I have not seen in my life. Landing at midnight in Princeton was an experience. There were no phones, connectivity was not like today. Scientifically I was very happy. IIT education has very well prepared me for it. Quite solidly I would say. There were a lot of students from Harvard and so on, top places in the US. I actually was probably ahead of them. I cleared by qualifying exam quickly. You came back to work at TIFR after that? Dabholkar : Yes, because of my family background, I was quite keen to come back. Because of my family background I always felt a social commitment towards India. I have always felt that we have benefited from such excellent free education in IITs. It was always a thought in my mind to find a way to give back. TIFR offers that kind of opportunity without compromising on science. It was a very strong group in those days. I think during our time it became stronger. It has an International profile, it was not like we were. It was among the top 10 places in the world. Many post docs from abroad used to come. We organized string conference in 2000, I was one of the organizers. Hawking had come. He was in India to talk to us. The level of the group was high enough. It was not like we were travel agents. After that why did you leave Bombay? Dabholkar : Mainly for personal reasons, my wife is from Europe. Otherwise I was quite happy. I would not have left. I was very happy. I felt good about whatever little contribution I was able to make to Indian science. Just lecturing at various places, training students, being there, organizing conferences and giving some profile to these places. That was very satisfying. Recent times, do you feel the need to get involved in social mobilizations? Apart from physics, academically. Dabholkar : As I said, I did get myself involved personally. For six months I sort of put Physics on hold. I sort of got this website designed. I really knew nothing about website. For 6 months, I came here. We marched on the streets of Bombay. I really took time off. But you can not do science at very high competitive level and do this at the same time. But at the same time, I think, people like me or whoever are privileged enough to do, it is there responsibility. I think everybody should find a balance in where you can contribute. We don’t want to also dissipate your energy. Pick some thing where you can make a contribution. For six months I was working on this and then I switched back to Physics. Whatever little contribution I could make I had done. There are other things. Implementation of this law is an ongoing battle. There, all the activists – Andha Shraddha Nirmulan Samidhi (AniSa – Anti Superstition Forum) are in the front. They are the ones who are pushing this forward. 2/6 But I was not in a position to make a contribution at that level. But there was a different place. I helped them to raise money for a science van. It was Rs 50 lakh. Those are the kind of places where I found a role of for myself. [AniSa was founded by Dr Narendra Dabholkar] We will go on to the string theory questions. Can you explain to a lay person, what is string theory and why it is so important in Physics? Dabholkar : At the moment string theory is a theory, not an established fact of nature. It is an exciting theory where some of the very long standing difficulties in theoretical physics. There is a hope to resolve them in a consistent way. One of the big long standing difficulty is the conflict between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics . Both them work very nicely, in their respective domains. But they are inconsistent with each other. And in science we can not tolerate such situations where we have inconsistent theories. It is a kind of, no option. We have to find. Our means are limited, our brains are limited, our resources are limited. May be we can not go beyond the LHC (Large Hadron Collider).